The Hookup Equation: A Loveless Brothers Novel

by Noir, Roxie

  “I’ve accepted that my fate is to direct the lot of you,” I say. “Someone’s gotta be the project manager.”

  “And someone’s gotta be the workhorse?” he asks, raising his eyebrows.

  I just shrug, laughing, and he heads back outside to get some more boxes.

  Twenty minutes later, it’s done. Or, at least, everything that was once in the moving truck is now in our apartment, so Silas, Levi, Javier, and Bastien are done.

  Our unpacking adventure, on the other hand, is just beginning. Or it will be, soon. Not today.

  Today, the six of us flop on the floor, couch, and kitchen chairs, drinking cold lemonade that I had the foresight to bring. I’m on the couch between Bastien and Caleb, Levi is on a kitchen chair flipping through my paperback of One Hundred Years of Solitude, and Silas and Javier are on the floor while Silas digs through a box of my old textbooks.

  “That’s also the golden ratio,” Javier is saying, lifting lemonade to his lips. “Everything is the golden ratio. It’s golden. Humans just like it.”

  “What about the Mona Lisa?” Silas asks.

  Javier leans back on his hands, sighing and looking thoughtful. He’s still wearing long sleeves, despite the heat, but his skin is back to being the right color. There’s life in his eyes again. He’s been out of rehab for a little over three months, and so far, I think it’s working.

  “Probably,” he says. “Da Vinci was all about using math in art.”

  Caleb leans back, puts one arm around me.

  One second later, he takes it back.

  “Sorry,” he says. “Too hot.”

  “Also, you’re sticky,” I say, laughing.

  On the floor, Silas pulls out my Abnormal Psychology textbook.

  “Well, you’re also sticky,” Caleb says, resting his hands on top of his head. “We should unpack the shower first.”

  “Pretty sure the shower’s already there,” I say, and Caleb just laughs.

  “I’m not the one who has a specific conditioner for each day of the week,” he teases. “Just hand me some dish soap and I’m good.”

  “I didn’t just hear that,” I tell him. “Are you trying to decimate your moisture barrier?”

  “Yes?” he asks, quizzically. “No? Which one’s the right answer?”

  “No,” offers Levi, still reading One Hundred Years of Solitude. “You need your moisture barrier.”

  I point at Caleb’s oldest brother.

  “He knows,” I say.

  “Fine,” Caleb concedes. “We’ll unpack the shower accoutrement before bathing.”

  We go quiet again. Silas and Javier are still talking, leaning against boxes, as Silas asks Javier why my textbook is so ugly and Javier explains all the design problems with the cover.

  He’s been taking graphic design courses at night and working in a hardware store during the day, still living with my parents, and I admit, that last part worries me. I wish I could get him out of Norfolk, away from the same people who were there last time he slipped, but I haven’t been able to yet.

  On my other side, Bastien leans in toward me.

  “You know,” he confesses, quietly, “I thought there would be fewer shirts.”

  I look around the room, and then at him.

  “Is that why you helped?” I ask, giving him a look.

  “No, I helped because you’re my favorite sister and you asked very nicely,” he says. “But…”

  “You know they’re all straight,” I point out. “And also one is your brother.”

  “I wasn’t excited for him taking his shirt off,” he says. “And I know they’re straight. Doesn’t mean I can’t look.”

  Caleb leans toward me again.

  “What are you two talking about?” he murmurs. “Are you talking about Silas and your brother?”

  “Sort of,” I say.

  “It’s not important,” Bastien says.

  “Wait, what about them?” I ask.

  They’re still talking, animatedly, sitting on the floor. Now Silas is just pulling random books from boxes, and they’re flipping through them, talking, laughing.

  “I think this is why Silas came,” Caleb says.

  “To meet Javier?” I say, quietly, as my brother and my boyfriend both lean in toward me.

  “Wait, what?” Bastien asks. “Hold on.”

  “Silas heard that you had a brother in rehab who’d come out of the Marines with some pretty bad problems,” Caleb says, shrugging. “He asked me a ton of questions last time we were both at my mom’s for dinner, probably because he’s also a former Marine.”

  Bastien and I just stare at Silas and Javier, on the floor, chatting away.

  “Huh,” we say, exactly in unison, then look at each other.

  “Jinx, you owe me a coke,” Bastien says.

  “Put it on my tab,” I tell him, then lean back, into the couch.

  “Okay,” I say, raising my voice enough that the whole room can hear me. “What kind of pizza do you guys want?”

  * * *

  After we eat, Silas and Levi both leave for Sprucevale again, though Silas gives Javier his card before heading out. I unearth a trash bag, throw away pizza boxes and paper plates, and then take a good, long look around at the apartment.

  At our apartment.

  It still feels a little surreal. I’ve wondered a couple times if this is a good idea, if moving in with my older boyfriend at twenty-three is the right move. From the outside, it looks weird, like I’m settling down too fast when I should be sowing my wild oats and living a wild life and… whatever you’re supposed to do in your twenties.

  But I don’t feel any of that. I know I’m supposed to wonder what it’s like to have sex with other people, but the truth is, I don’t really care. I found my person. What does it matter if anyone else is out there?

  I’m still standing there, looking at the living room, when Caleb comes up behind me and wraps an arm around my waist, slings the other over my shoulder, rests his chin on top of my head.

  “We should probably get rid of some books before the next time we move,” he says, contemplating boxes.

  “I can’t think about moving again right now,” I admit.

  “I thought it went pretty well.”

  “It did,” I say, hooking my hands over his arms and leaning back. “Though I think I lifted, like, two things, so of course it went well for me.”

  It also went well because I got to watch Caleb lift a lot of heavy things, which is one of my favorite sights, even if he didn’t take his shirt off.

  Down the hall, in the room that’s destined to be the study, I can hear Bastien and Javier talking, the sound of an air mattress being inflated. They’re spending the night and heading back to the Tidewater tomorrow.

  “You’re not going to surprise me by being one of those people who organizes her bookshelf by color, are you?” he asks, his arms still around me.

  “What if I am?” I say, still leaning back.

  “Well, I’d point out that there are far better ways to organize a bookshelf,” he says, his voice dipping. “And I, for one, value efficiency over looks.”

  “I’m gonna make a heart,” I tell him, and point at the bookshelves. “Right there. In the middle.”

  He just sighs.

  “And I’m gonna mix all your nerdy sci-fi books with my Jane Austen, and your number theory stuff with my neurology stuff, and you know what else?”

  “I can’t bear to listen,” he says, laughing quietly.

  “I’m not even going to separate fiction from nonfiction,” I whisper dramatically. “It’ll be chaos. You’ll rue the day you decided to live with me.”

  “I doubt that,” he says. “Chaos, yes, obviously. Rue the day, never.”

  “Textbooks and poetry, side by side,” I threaten.

  “You’re gonna have to try way harder than that to get rid of me,” he says, arms still tight. “Thalia, I’ll love you even if you start using bookshelves for non-book items. Like plants, or
knickknacks.”

  “Even knickknacks?” I tease.

  “Even knickknacks,” he confirms. “Even if they’re creepy porcelain dolls.”

  I just laugh.

  “I won’t,” I promise. “I love you too much for that.”

  “Thank you,” he says, and plants a kiss on top of my head, and we stand there for a long moment, just looking at the living room together.

  “I like this place,” I say, finally. “I like that it’s ours.”

  “I like that too,” he says, softly. “And I like that the next place we live will also be ours, and the next one, and the next one.”

  I turn my head so that I fit perfectly under his chin, speak to his shoulder. It’s been a long, hot, hard day, and my whole body feels slightly fuzzy, like I’m out of focus. Like I’m fading into him.

  “Promise?” I ask.

  “Absolutely,” he says. “You’re gonna have to grow old listening to my opinions about bookshelf organization.”

  “Only if you agree to grow old watching me rearrange books to be prettier,” I tease.

  “I can’t think of a better way to live,” he says, and I laugh, and I raise his hand to my lips and kiss his knuckles.

  “Love you,” I say, softly.

  “Love you back,” Caleb says.

  I close my eyes. I relax, sinking into him. I try to crystallize this moment in my mind, this second where everything is perfect, because I know it won’t always be. There will be rough times and fights and we’ll get angry with each other, and I might need this moment then.

  We’ll get through it. I have complete and utter faith in that, in our love for each other, in the unbreakable chain that binds my heart to his.

  I still don’t believe in magic.

  But this, I know, is magical.

  The End

  * * *

  Not finished with Caleb and Thalia yet?

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  * * *

  Eli Loveless was my nemesis from the first day of kindergarten until we graduated high school. Everything I did, he had to do better - and vice versa. The day he left town was the best day of my life.

  And now? He’s back.

  Get Enemies With Benefits (Loveless Brothers #1) now!

  * * *

  It’s a simple enough transaction.

  Marisol needs the money, and I need a nice girl to parade in front of the cameras.

  No feelings. No strings. No falling for anyone.

  Get Never Enough now!

  (Or keep reading for a sneak peek.)

  Never Enough

  A rock star romance

  Chapter One

  Gavin

  Valerie holds her finger on a button, her body perfectly motionless as the blinds lower slowly. It cuts the sunlight down by about half, but it’s still too bloody bright in here. Hell, everything in Los Angeles is too bloody bright.

  Wake up in the morning: sun. Go for a three-mile run, one of my new, healthy, replacement habits, and there’s sun. Lunch, dinner, when I go into the studio: fucking sun, sun, sun. The only respite is at night, though then the whole city is lit with screaming neon, so it’s not too terribly different.

  It’ll make a man miss his rainy gray motherland, that’s for sure.

  “There we are,” Valerie says, and walks to sit at the head of the conference table, facing away from the window. Larry and I sit as well, him in his five-thousand-dollar suit and me in my nicest black t-shirt and least-ripped jeans.

  Can’t say I haven’t made an effort. I rejected two other pairs of trousers as I was getting dressed. Across the table, our manager Nigel is wearing a short-sleeved button-down shirt and a windbreaker, so at least I’m dressed better than someone.

  “Is Miss Fields running late?” Larry asks, checking his Rolex. He couldn’t be less subtle about it.

  Valerie’s face doesn’t move. I’m not sure it can move.

  “A few minutes, yes,” she says, her voice perfectly placid and calm. Her dark hair is parted neatly in the middle, both sides waving gently away from her perfectly smooth, even face.

  She makes me think of a porcelain doll come to life, if porcelain dolls were particularly crafty, manipulative, and bossy — and since she’s the band’s new Public Relations manager, I consider those things compliments.

  “Tonight is Gavin’s first show since the tour ended,” Larry says, lacing his sausage-like fingers together on the table. “We can’t wait forever, you know, and he should be arriving early at the venue, making sure everything is—”

  “I’m fine, Larry,” I interject before he can really get going. “It’s been three minutes, surely we can give her three more.”

  “I’m just saying, your time is valuable, and if—”

  “I’m known to be late on occasion as well,” I say, starting to get impatient with my lawyer. He’s good at his job, but he’s set on having the advantage in every situation, even one like this.

  “She’ll be here very soon, I’m sure,” Valerie says, her tone still neutral and pleasant.

  I hate this.

  I hate this sterile, shiny, bright conference room and I hate that now I’ve got to listen to people who lecture me about my image and my brand. Once upon a time I played guitar too loud in tiny clubs and howled at the top of my lungs and didn’t give a shit what anyone thought, but now I’m here. With these wankers.

  My old self would make fun of me now, that’s for sure. At least until he saw the house I live in. That might shut him up.

  Larry sighs dramatically, checking his watch again, but just as he does the door swings open and four people enter: a man, two women, and a girl.

  My heart plummets when I see the girl, like a ball of lead straight into my gut. If I had doubts about this already, now they’re doubled. Tripled.

  She’s blonde and blue-eyed, practically cherubic. I don’t think she’s old enough to drink legally, but she’s got that calm, blank affectation that people who grew up in front of the camera tend to have. As if she only comes alive when someone’s recording.

  One of the women leans over the table, and I stand to shake her hand.

  “Margaret Sorenson,” she says, all business. “I’m Daisy’s PR person. This is her lawyer, Michael Warren, and this is Karen Fields.”

  “Lovely to meet you,” I say automatically, though she’s already moved on to Larry.

  I look at Daisy Fields, then at Karen Fields, who must be her mother, and I realize two things.

  One, she brought her mother to a business meeting; and two, Daisy Fields is her given name. I’d assumed she changed it when she went on television, but I guess her parents actually named her Daisy Fields.

  They must have really wanted their little girl to go into showbiz, as they say out here.

  Then Daisy herself is across the table from me, leaning forward, holding out her hand. It’s small and soft, and she barely grips me at all. It’s like shaking hands with a mitten.

  “It’s so nice to meet you!” she bubbles.

  “You as well,” I say.

  “I love Half-Asleep!” she goes on. “It’s such a beautiful love song.”

  It’s Half-Awake, not Half-Asleep, and it’s not a love song, but I let it slide.

  “Thank you,” is all I say.

  We all sit, and Valerie starts talking, but I’m hardly listening, my mind swirling as I stare at the girl across from me.

  I can’t do this. There’s no way I can do this, not with her. I’m sure Daisy Fields is nice, but she’s a child. She brought her mother to this meeting, and even now, she’s watching Valerie intently, as if she needs to hang onto every word that comes out of the other woman’s mouth or she might lose the thread of conversation.

  “And that’s all amenable to you?” Valerie asks Daisy’s side of the table.

  Wide-eyed, Daisy looks at her mother. Karen nods, then Daisy nods too. />
  That’s it. I’ve had it.

  I no longer give a single fuck about rehabbing my brand or making over my image or any of that.

  I’m not doing this. I’m not pretending to date a former child star who might not even know where Britain is so that the music-buying public will think I’ve turned over a new leaf and discarded my old, sordid ways.

  I have. They’re gone. It’s been months since I so much as had a drink, but I’m not hauling this girl around town on my arm to prove it.

  I stand, shoving my expensive leather executive chair back, all eyes on me now.

  “Larry, Nigel,” I say, my tone clipped. “A word?”

  I don’t wait for them to answer, just walk out of the conference room and into the hall. Both men follow, and they shut the door behind them.

  “Gavin—”

  “I’m not doing this,” I say, gesturing at the door. The wall dividing the hall from the room is frosted glass, so I know they can see me, but I don’t care.

  “Come on, Gavin,” Nigel says, holding his hands out like he’s trying to console me. “We talked about this, and you know the record label isn’t—”

  “Was I unclear?” I ask, my voice rising a little. “I’m not pretending to shag that sweet moronic poppet so that housewives on Long Island will buy our records, and fuck the label.”

  Nigel’s face drops, his mouth sagging at the corners. Next to him, Larry’s face is perfectly, carefully neutral.

  “Gavin, this is what we—”

  “How can I get you to yes?” Larry interrupts, a phrase I’m certain he learned from some negotiation seminar.

  I didn’t think I could hate this moment more, but now I do.

  I just shake my head and push one hand through my hair, the narrow leather straps around my left wrist sliding down. There’s seventeen of them, one for each week I’ve been clean.

  “You can’t,” I say, turn, and leave the building.